Schilling v. U.S. House of Representatives

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to compel, under the common law right of access, the disclosure of emails and recordings related to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s investigation of energy companies and their business practices and research on fossil fuels. The emails and recordings were “preparatory materials for a committee hearing” on climate change and therefore were “informal preliminary steps in a congressional investigation, not the recording of an ‘official … decision.’” The court held that sovereign immunity barred the claim.